You can also listen to this here:
(Though meant for a Trinidad and Tobago audience via the T&T Guardian of October 11, 2023. It is my experience and knowledge that most of the Caribbean confronts lagging digitalisation ambitions.)
Not that I have been doing word counts over recent years, but I cannot recall a national budget statement with as many mentions of the words ‘digital’ and ‘digitalisation’ as the one we endured last week.
When it comes to such matters, I am probably
overdoing it now. But I think it is necessary to keep tabs on where our country
is or is not going when it comes to belatedly grasping opportunities before our
very eyes that have the potential to dramatically improve the quality of our
lives.
Today, we hear elaborate words and stated
intentions – both within private enterprise and in the state sector. What are otherwise
simple, routine exercises arranged at private levels within minutes on a laptop
or handheld device are made to sound revolutionary and trendsetting.
For example, there are 16-year-olds capable of
setting up secure online payment systems in the blink of an eye. True, there
aren’t the legislative/regulatory bars of a state agency, but if there is this
grand design and intent at a supposedly bipartisan level, what really are the
real obstacles to getting such things done?
HTML forms are also hardly a mind-blowing
innovation anymore. They are much more user-friendly than the PDF forms
currently being touted as some kind of epochal, modern marvel by state agencies,
but which greatly challenge users who neither have appropriate software for
textual inserts and digital signatures or printers/scanners to undertake the
arduous task of printing, signing, scanning, and emailing.
There is also the phenomenon that takes us one
step forward (online appointments, for example) but two steps backward, such as
“proof of residence” requirements that have been causing so many regrets among
those of us who opted for online billing for utilities such as telecoms,
electricity, and water.
So, yes, print that online bill, travel down to
the utility to get it “stamped” and there you go! At WASA, they don’t “stamp”, you
pay $11.25 at one window, then sit and wait for a “copy” at another window.
True, there is the convenience of an orderly
online appointment system to renew your drivers’ licence (confirmation of which
you are encouraged to print!). You download the PDF, print it, and walk with
it. There goes the advantage of an online portal with the potential to minimise
inconvenience and save paper.
The end product is at least the same amount of
paper as before, but now the added inconvenience of the trip to the utility
office, together with downloading, printing, and scanning of completed
application forms.
Now, don’t get me wrong. As the finance
minister suggested while presenting some startling statistics on the number of
people and businesses without bank accounts, digital payment systems, or engage
in online banking, the financial services sector has simply not done enough to
foster sufficient confidence in such conveniences.
Framed as “the financial inclusion landscape”,
minister Imbert dropped many jaws when he revealed: “72 percent of businesses
do not have a business bank account, 88 percent of businesses do not accept
digital payments, and 55 percent of individuals do not now have the knowledge
to use mobile or web online banking.”
It is very easy to blame the victims aka
prospective customers here. But it is also necessary to calculate underlying
causes behind this apparent estrangement between people and the banking sector,
in this instance.
It’s a deception, for example, that
mechanisation of transactions to replace human contact at the counter, is now
reflected in higher fees. For, much like telecoms assets, the initial capital
costs are eventually offset by savings on wages, security and other recurrent cost
centres.
The implicit message, therefore, is that
mechanisation/digitalisation has net negative impacts on customers. Which service
provider has reduced its fees because of digitalisation? Why are minister
Imbert’s statistics so outrageously accurate?
It irritates many of us whenever we hear talk
of a digital transition. One more example: The Environmental Management
Authority (EMA) will soon be able to accept online payments (the same process
the 16-year-old has now mastered), but what happens with the numerous copies of
the same voluminous documents required for submission for transactions such as
EIAs and the like?
When such anomalies disappear, only then you
can talk boastfully about any “digital agenda.” Until then, people will
continue not to trust such talk either from politicians or business leaders. Go
find that bristol board vaccine certificate. Download the latest T&TEC
bill. Lift that mattress. Find evidence of progress on any of this!
